Distance Education Modernization Project

Ensure projects have a clear and achievable focus. Apart from its innovative nature, the DEMP was also very broad, with the project inputs spread very thinly. The project included the construction of a national broadband network; mobilization of non-traditional partners including private institutions; capacity building and institution strengthening within the OUSL; development of online courses, which is notoriously difficult and slow; and implementation of these courses with the expectation of rapid, high enrolments. The DEMP may have had more chance of success if it had focused only on the OUSL, or only on NODES, with the strengthening of the OUSL as a separate project.